Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Attack of the Cliches

Reading an interesting book at the moment. It's about a young girl who leaves London to stay in the countryside with her kindly but strict grandmother. She's living in a castle, and she meets a servant called 'Lockett' who is superstitious, rough as nails, who advises her to 'not ask too many questions'. In the gardens, she meets with a group of mysterious children who advise her to venture into the dungeons to seek what she finds, before vanishing into the mists. Late that night she goes in to the dungeons and discovers a mysterious creature known as 'Dal Ek' holding court in the dungeons. But who is behind it all? She discovers an ever greater web of conspiracy, controlled by the mysterious 'Doctor Proctor', a local figure. As the plot draws towards an inexorable climax, it becomes clear that Proctor himself is just a pawn in an age-old blood plot by forces far greater than she could have ever comprehended, who were first summoned to this earth by a small blood sacrifice in the nineteenth century to a minor Egyptian deity by a local Anglican Vicar who had begun to doubt the existence of the Lord. It seems that this incident - trivial of itself - may have triggered the End of Life on Earth as we Know it, or the imminent explosion of the Universe Itself: whichever comes first. Then the holidays come to an end, and she has to go home.

3 comments:

Sounds like it manages to be feverish & somnolent at the same time. If the girl is sexually abused, Oprah might go for it. Do they do Oprah in Oz? I only hope that, like all my own feverish stories, it contains the word crepuscular

Jeff - not only crepuscular, but also eldritch, nigromantic, cthonhic, and necrophilic. I'll get on to the O right now. What's her number again?*

Ever read 'Howard the Duck'? A comic written by Steve Gerber - published in the 1970s, but he came out with a new series just recently. This new comic series had a hilarious send-up of talk-show hosts - a cross between Oprah and Sally Jessie-Raphael, complete with the vapid guests and a 'Dr. Phil' style psychologist. Worth a look!